“Knowledge a drop; ignorance the ocean.”
- Unknown
“The knife does not cut itself, the finger does not touch itself, the mind does not know itself, and the eyes do not see themselves.”
- Zen Ancient
In recent readings I began to question the struggles with the very strings of life. Relinquish, detach, and accept; this is a blatant Buddhist/Hindi belief. What insights do you have? I am curious as to what others think.
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I think the first one talks about immortality. Drop of knowledge, a small, conscious part of our lives, not really lost or destroyed at death, but unites and goes back to the whole, the ocean of ignorance as we cannot know the opposite state of the afterlife.
The second one I think, is the same as the question: is there a sound made when a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it.
Nice insights Justly.
The second one can be seen as a Koan or Zen riddle indeed.
Thanks.
The perceiver views outwardly, and thusly, can never properly perceive itself.
Perhaps the reason we human have such fondness for mirrors, to know that perceiver actually is being?
I believe that everything is being. And on earth, it churns with Will and emotion.
The “If a tree fell in the forest” riddle has been solved. Perhaps that is where the answer you are looking for lies.
“Will” is the daft human construct used in place of “being becoming” for perceivers who fail to understand the macroperspective … life will not be denied.
Emotion is illusionist. The unchecked speculator behind the fragmented perceiver.
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I know but you did not offer a solution to the Zen riddle so I will offer mine:
"The knife does not cut itself, the finger does not touch itself, the mind does not know itself, and the eyes do not see themselves’
Reality requires two things: the subject and the object. Man can be both subject and object. For an object to be perceived, there must be a subject in the act perceiving it, so let me rephrase the riddle’s wordings to:
“The mind commandeth the eyes to looketh the knife but don’t test that knife on your finger”
The eyes become the object to the subject mind. The eyes in turn becomes the subject and the object of the eye is the knife which will in turn becomes the subject of which the finger is the object and so on…
But this is only my interpretation.
People have different realities and interpretations.
I’m sure others have their own interpretations. What is yours?
I’d like to add: we and our realities are just drops “en el mar” which is analogous to God.